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HAPTER 6
guards from the Pinkerton Detective Agency to protect the plant so that he could
hire scabs, or strikebreakers, to keep it operating. In a pitched battle that left at
least three detectives and nine workers dead, the steelworkers forced out the
Pinkertons and kept the plant closed until the Pennsylvania National Guard
arrived on July 12. The strike continued until November, but by then the union
had lost much of its support and gave in to the company. It would take 45 years
for steelworkers to mobilize once again.
THE PULLMAN COMPANY STRIKE
Strikes continued in other industries, how-
ever. During the panic of 1893 and the economic depression that followed, the
Pullman company laid off more than 3,000 of its 5,800 employees and cut the
wages of the rest by 25 to 50 percent, without cutting the cost of its employee
housing. After paying their rent, many workers took home less than $6 a week. A
strike was called in the spring of 1894, when the economy improved and the
Pullman company failed to restore wages or decrease rents. Eugene Debs asked for
arbitration, but Pullman refused to negotiate with the strikers. So the ARU began
boycotting Pullman trains.
After Pullman hired strikebreakers, the strike turned violent, and President
Grover Cleveland sent in federal troops. In the bitter aftermath, Debs was jailed.
Pullman fired most of the strikers, and the railroads blacklisted many others, so
they could never again get rail-
road jobs.
WOMEN ORGANIZE
Although
women were barred from many
unions, they united behind
powerful leaders to demand bet-
ter working conditions, equal
pay for equal work, and an end
to child labor. Perhaps the most
prominent organizer in the
women’s labor movement was
Mary Harris Jones. Jones sup-
ported the Great Strike of 1877
and later organized for the
United Mine Workers of America
(UMW). She endured death
threats and jail with the coal
miners, who gave her the nick-
name Mother Jones. In 1903, to
expose the cruelties of child
labor, she led 80 mill children—
many with hideous injuries—on
a march to the home of
President Theodore Roosevelt.
Their crusade influenced the pas-
sage of child labor laws.
Other organizers also
achieved significant gains for
women. In 1909, Pauline New-
man, just 16 years old, became
the first female organizer of the
International Ladies’ Garment
Workers’ Union (ILGWU). A gar-
ment worker from the age of
eight, Newman also supported
MOTHER JONES
1830–1930
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones
was a native of Ireland who
immigrated to North America
as a child. She became
involved in the American labor
movement after receiving
assistance from the Knights
of Labor. According to a
reporter who followed “the
mother of the laboring class”
on her children’s march in
1903, “She fights their
battles with a Mother’s Love.”
Jones continued fighting until
her death at age 100.
Jones was definitely not the
kind of woman admired by
industrialists. “God almighty
made women,” she declared,
“and the Rockefeller gang of
thieves made ladies.”
EUGENE V. DEBS
1855–1926
Born in Indiana, Eugene V.
Debs left home at the age of
14 to work for the railroads.
In 1875 he helped organize
a local lodge of the Brother-
hood of Locomotive Firemen,
and after attempts to unite the
local railroad brotherhoods
failed, Debs organized the
American Railway Union.
While in prison following the
Pullman strike in 1894, Debs
read the works of Karl Marx
and became increasingly disil-
lusioned with capitalism. He
became a spokesperson for
the Socialist Party of America
and was its candidate for presi-
dent five times. In 1912, he
won about 900,000 votes—an
amazing 6 percent of the total.
